LISBON: Portugal’s government expects to start work as soon as next year on a planned new rail freight line between the port of Sines and the Spanish border town of Caia, the minister for planning and infrastructure, Pedro Marques said, stressing that there was plenty of time to finalise its precise route.
Portugal to start work on Sines-Caia link “I expect that in 2017 a part of this investment in the [Sines-Caia] corridor is already on the ground, namely the stretch closest to the frontier”, Marques told journalists after a meeting with local authority leaders from the Alentejo region at the headquarters of the Alentejo regional development commission (CCDR), in Évora.
Describing the planned link as “very important for the country”, the minister said that it would improve the competitiveness of the deepwater port at Sines, making it the “main port for Madrid” thanks to better transport links added to its location on the Atlantic seaboard, and easing the access of Portuguese goods to Spain and the rest of Europe. Asked about the route of the planned new line through Évora, which is supposed to cross the city and which has been contested by the council, political parties and locals, Marques noted that the project would take some four years to complete. He said that government officials were already working with Évora city council to discuss “suitable solutions”, and that locals would be consulted on the matter.
